MUSICAL ARTISTS

Elise Brancheau is an operatic soprano and arts administrator from New Jersey. She has performed leading operatic roles and oratorio/concert works, premiered new music, sung for film soundtracks, and more. She is the cofounder and artistic director of The Secret Opera, an organization committed to utilizing opera and art song to spark conversation about social issues and inspire positive action. She holds degrees in vocal performance from Westminster Choir College of Rider University and Mannes College The New School for Music. To learn more about Elise, visit www.elisebrancheau.com; for more information on The Secret Opera and its other cofounders, Alexis Rodda and Chelsea Feltman, visit www.thesecretopera.com.

Audrey Rose does not love Piña Coladas or getting caught in the rain - unless it's warm outside and there's dry clothes and a shower somewhere in the future, in which case, that's fun! She is in to yoga, polydactyl cats, and language. She likes to talk about Bakhtinian heteroglossia and carnivalesque in punk narratives and write and perform poems and, when CoLAB asks - theater plays. She was born on the anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871 and believes she may or may not be John Lennon reincarnated. Her influences include Tank Girl, Derrick Jensen, Kathy Acker, Dr. Seuss, Neil Gaiman, Toni Morrison, Brecht, Ovid, Sarah Kane and her alter ego and cathartic release: The Wichts. She currently "resides" in Berlin.

James Keene is a versatile violin soloist, chamber musician, and music pedagogue. After attending Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, he received his B.M. from Rutgers University, and later attended San Francisco Conservatory. Starting in high school, he has played solo, chamber, and orchestral performances for audiences throughout China, Italy, Spain, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the USA. His main pedagogues have been Todd Phillips, Carmit Zori, Lenuta Ciulei, and Wei-He.

Mariella Klinger is a teaching artist, singer, dancer, professional actor, and an Outreach Associate with coLAB Arts. She is really fun to be around. Mariella has appeared in the roles of Lucille Frank in Parade, Mimi Marquez in Rent, The Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and many others. She toured the Northeast for two years with the Traveling Lantern Theatre Company, a theatre company that produces two-person plays based on popular literature. With this company, Mariella was performing as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, Lucy and The White Witch in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Professor Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes, and every single part in A Christmas Carol. You can reach her at mariella@colab-arts.org and follow her on Twitter, @mariellalynn.

Matthew Makin is a born performer. He first found comfort on stage at the age of five and has been consistently performing ever since. Though he studied acting and performed in many theatrical productions throughout his high school (East Brunswick High School), college (Montclair State University) and has appeared in several plays at various playhouses in NYC, Matthew is now immersing himself in the world of music. He started writing poetry at the age of fourteen and has been putting those works to life with his band 'Experiment 34'. The psycho-funk rock group has been playing shows all over the tri-state area for over a year and look to be spreading their sound throughout the great states at a venue near you in the immediate future.

Erik Ransom (Book, Lyrics, Music) is a composer, playwright, librettist and performer with a diverse body of work. Coming: A Rock Musical of Biblical Proportions was Erik’s first foray as a writer and, within a year of starting the first draft, he was fortunate enough to see it fully produced at The Prince Music Theatre in February 2011. In Philadelphia and later at the 2014 New York International Fringe Festival, Coming played to packed houses and glowingly positive reviews, including raves from The Huffington Post, BroadwayWorld, Edge Magazine and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Erik penned the lyrics for the recent Off-Broadway musical spectacular: The Anthem, which ran at The Culture Project's Lynn Redgrave Theatre. Erik recently signed on to the writing team for season two of the 2014 Emmy-nominated web-series, Tainted Dreams. On the musical front, his smutty opus, GRINDR The Opera, premiered in concert in Spring of 2014 and had a high profile staged reading in April 2015 which was covered by The Daily Beast, The Guardian, Salon.com and the National Public Radio of the Republic of Ireland.. He is currently developing The Severed Hand of Neverland, a dark, raunchy retelling of Peter Pan which was co-conceived by Erik and his frequent collaborator, director Rachel Klein. Erik’s musical, More Than All the World, adapted from Marlowe’s Edward II, has been read at the Musical Theatre Factory and was presented as part of the York Theatre’s reading series in Spring 2016. His other produced works include Saga: The Ragnarok Opera and Tragic Events, and he is a two-time champion of the York Theatre's Tune-in-Time improvised musical theatre writing competition. Erik is represented by Abrams Artists Literary Department.